Dr. John R.W. Scott on the God of the Cross

Speaking of Job from yesterday, Dr. Stott chimes in.

There are limits to the sphere in which the finite mind of man can work. Men may indeed investigate the nature of disease, its causes, incidence, symptoms and cure, but no laboratory will ever witness the discovery of its meaning or its purpose. I would even believe that one of the reasons why God has not revealed this mystery is to keep us proud mortals humble. Our broad horizons are so narrow to God. Our vast knowledge is so small to him. Our great brain is so limited is his sight. He says to us as he said to Job: ‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Have you entered the storehouses of the snow? Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion? Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, Here we are?’ (Jb. 38:4, 22, 31, 35). The only right attitude towards suffering is worship, or humble self-surrender. This is not a grovelling humiliation but a sober humility. This is not to commit intellectual and moral suicide; this is to acknowledge the limits of our finite minds. This is in a word to let God be God and to be content ourselves to remain mere men. This is reasonable too when we have had a revelation of God like Job’s. ‘But’, says a critic, ‘we have not’. Wait a  moment! We have, you know. We have had a better and a fuller one. We are much more favoured than Job. He only knew the God of nature; we know the God of grace. He only knew the God of the earth and the sky and the sea; we know the God of Jesus Christ. He only knew the God of the crocodile; we know the God of the cross. If it was right and reasonable for Job to worship, it is much more reasonable for us. We have seen the cross. Heaven is neither silent nor sullen. Heaven has been opened, and Christ has descended, and God has revealed himself in the Christ of the cross. The cross is the pledge of God’s love.